Cayetano Valdés

Cayetano Valdés

Cayetano Valdés y Florez Bazán y Peón , (born September 28, 1767 in Seville , Spain , † February 6, 1835 in San Fernando near Cádiz , Spain) was a Spanish naval officer and politician who ruled as Spanish regent in 1823.

Life

Valdés joined the Spanish Navy as a midshipman in 1781 at the age of 14. The following year he experienced his baptism of fire in a naval battle with the English fleet off Cape Spartel . In 1784 he took part in the punitive operations of the Spaniards against the Corsair Republic of Algiers , which were commanded by Antoni Barceló .

The Italian navigator Alessandro Malaspina di Mulazzo took Valdés with him on his research trip to America in 1789 in the rank of lieutenant. The expedition explored the entire west coast of America from Patagonia to Alaska . On the voyage he was promoted to frigate captain and was given command of the ship Mexicana , with which he explored the Juan de Fuca Strait and the Strait of Georgia together with Dionisio Alcalá Galiano . While circumnavigating Vancouver Island , they met George Vancouver .

After returning from America Valdés was promoted to sea captain in 1794, he commanded the liner Pelayo , with which he took part in the naval battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797) . The Pelayo was the only Spanish ship of the line that was not seized by the English.

Under Vice Admiral José de Mazzaredo , the Spanish fleet tried again and again to break the British blockade of access to the Atlantic. Valdés received command of the Neptuno in 1799 , which he took over from the allied French in Brest . In 1801 a Franco-Spanish fleet drove from Brest to Hispaniola to stop the Haiti slave rebellion . Via Havana Valdés traveled with the Neptuno to Cádiz; there he was promoted to brigadier general in 1802.

At the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, he again commanded the Neptuno and the battleships assigned to it as a fleet commander. The defeat of the French and Spanish against the British was devastating. The Neptuno was also captured and sank in the storm that followed the battle. Valdés himself was seriously wounded and taken prisoner.

When the Spaniards resisted Napoleon's occupation in 1808, the British released Valdés, who joined the Spanish army. He worked on the staff of General Joaquín Blake y Joyes and took part in the Battle of Espinosa in November , where he was wounded again and was promoted to lieutenant general.

He then devoted himself to administrative tasks and became a delegate of the Cortes of Cádiz ; he received the rank of captain general for Cádiz and commanding general of the ocean fleet.

When the French were defeated in 1814 and Ferdinand VII returned from exile and resumed his absolutist rule, Valdés lost his title and was held in the fortress of Alicante .

When the liberal revolution restricted the king's powers and reinstated the Cádiz Constitution in 1820 , Valdés was released and returned to his post in Cádiz. In the same year he married Isabel Roca de Togores y Valcárcel (* 1783).

During the liberal interlude in Spain, which lasted until 1823, he was Minister of War from September 1820 to March 1821. He was elected as a member of the Cortes and acted as one of three regents (along with Pedro Agar y Bustillo and Gabriel Ciscar y Ciscar ) when the Cortes declared the king incapacitated.

When the French invading army under the Duke of Angoulême defeated the Liberals and Ferdinand VII paved the way for the return to absolutism, Valdés overlooked the defense of the besieged Cadiz. After the military defeat of the Spaniards, he handed over King Ferdinand to the French on October 1st.

After the victory, the advocates of absolutism cruelly held the liberals to account. Cayetano Valdés was also immediately sentenced to death, but was able to escape to British-occupied Gibraltar with the help of the French military leader Armand Charles Guilleminot ; from there he sailed to London.

In Great Britain, Valdés was part of the liberal emigre movement under Agustín Argüelles Álvarez . When Ferdinand VII died in 1833, his widow Maria Christina , who ran the affairs of state for the underage Infanta Isabella II (Spain) , issued a comprehensive amnesty.

Valdés returned to Cádiz in 1834, was appointed captain general of the navy and national hero of the kingdom. He died in 1835.

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• Biography (spanish)
• Biography (spanish)
• Biography (spanish)
• Entry at geneall.net
• Christiana Brennecke: From Cádiz to London: Spanish liberalism in the field of tension between national self-determination, internationality and exile (1820–1833) . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, Germany 2010, ISBN 978-3-525-10104-9 ( books.google.de ).